


Appointment at Halloween

by rowdy_tanner



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Old West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:53:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowdy_tanner/pseuds/rowdy_tanner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short ficlet explaining why Josiah Sanchez had always dreaded Halloween up until he met The Magnificent Seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appointment at Halloween

Josiah Sanchez has to make the ultimate choice at Halloween, a time of strange and supernatural happenings. A night when things that can't and shouldn't happen do. This year, for once, Josiah finds he isn't alone.

                                      

 

 

It was that time of the year again. Jack-o'-lanterns and candy, trick or treat? A day Josiah Sanchez had come to dread. As he aged it seemed to arrive all the sooner. Besides himself, only a few hardened drinkers and five of The Seven remained in the saloon. It was of no matter for they would drink on blissfully unaware of the event about to transpire. Seeing and hearing nothing untoward. Only Josiah would see.

Ostensibly he was keeping an eye on the place for a sleeping Inez Recillos. A simple but effective ruse that allowed him to remain in the saloon all night without comment. The room he used in back of the church would have served equally well but he did not wish to have the place where he slept defiled by an ungodly presence.

He grew restless in the thick travel dust laden air. Lingering odors of sweat, cattle and horses in harsh contrast to Nathan Jackson's fragrant cigar smoke as it curled lazily upwards. The cigar itself largely forgotten as Ezra Standish effortlessly allowed the healer to win enough money at cards to pay for a new bullet extractor he'd spied in the latest medical journal. 

Concertinaed into a hard wooden chair, slouch hat pulled low over his vivid blue eyes, Vin Tanner appeared to be sleeping but it was always hard to tell with the Texican. J. D. Dunne was indeed asleep, head lolling on Buck Wilmington's shoulder. The ladies' man was apparently playing cards but in truth he was warmly remembering an afternoon of frenzied coupling with Blossom Call.

The batwing doors of the saloon swung to and fro as a figure entered the venetian red building and took up a seat at the table opposite Josiah. 

"Be gone."

"Now is that anyway to greet your father?"

"You are dead, Father, thank God."

"God had no say in the matter."

"So at last you admit it!" Josiah glanced over his shoulder certain sure that they were not being seen or heard before hissing, "Then go back to Hell!"

"You would condemn me, your own father, to endless torture in Hell?"

"Your own evil deeds sentenced you to perdition not me! I am the one you torment each and every Halloween night!"

"There is a simple remedy to that."

"To change places with you? To take your place in Hell? What choice is that? No choice at all."

Josiah stared across the table at his father's apparition. When they had put him in the ground years ago Josiah had known his father was headed straight to Hell for his sins. Even now as a grown man Josiah felt small in his father's presence. How many times had his father employed his towering size and big booming voice as tools to intimidate and terrify his own wife and children into servile compliance? Ruling with an iron fist, Abel Sanchez's word was law. Governing his family's every waking moment. 

After several violent confrontations Josiah had left home as soon as he could. No, even that wasn't strictly true. Josiah had run away like a beaten dog. Deserting his heartbroken mother and leaving his fragile sister to her fate. Hannah had rebelled in the only way open to a woman. Unable to hurt her father with her fists she had humiliated Abel Sanchez in front of his entire congregation.

"How is Hannah?" Josiah's father, Abel Sanchez asked, slyly changing tack.

"You know damn well how she is."

"A little worse, I suspect. You know that I could cure her if I walked the earth once more."

Josiah felt the floor beneath his feet shift.

"Heal her and keep her safe for ever. How long do you think you have left to live? You rely on these unbelievers and ne'er-do-wells to watch your back? A foolish mistake. I taught you better than that. Hannah could have normal life with me. Free from that bleak, cold-hearted place you abandoned her in. Able to rejoice with me and truly embrace the pleasures to be found here on this earthly plane."

"Get thee behind me, Satan. You would corrupt her." Josiah's own guilt over his sister Hannah's plight making his deep voice tremble.

"Your days are numbered. Hannah will be left all alone. Friendless. Helpless. At the mercy of those black-garbed crones. You owe her a chance at life."

"No!"

"You would not do this one small thing for your beloved sister?"

"I . . ." Josiah was overwhelmed by remorse. To see Hannah smile again would it be worth his sacrifice? Paying penance here on this earth had not changed anything. Hannah was still trapped, lost in her own mind. The key to her freedom rested in his hands. What was he? A wastrel, a sinner, a fornicator. A man of some violence? By his own actions he was headed to Hell too. His own pathetic life added up to nothing. Why not make it sooner rather than later? Tempted by Abel Sanchez's words Josiah opened his mouth to give his eagerly awaited answer.

A strong hand clamped itself to his right shoulder.

"J'siah ain't goin' no wheres with ya," a raspy voice asserted.

"He is needed here," seconded a smooth Southern voice, "and therefore unable to take up your dubious offer."

"He's one of us," added another voice as a hand smelling faintly of carbolic gripped Josiah's left shoulder, pressing him back down into his seat.

"You can see him?" asked a poleaxed Josiah. "No one but me has ever been able to see him." 

"Yep," drawled Vin.

"You don't scare me," sneered Abel Sanchez. "This is between family." 

"He is family," stated Buck.

"Our family," agreed JD.

"Therefore, I would advise you to leave, promptly," said Ezra, the lamplight glinting off his gold tooth adding to his sinister expression.

"We keep the peace here in town an' we ain't having no truck with evildoers," warned Nathan.

"Poachers turned gamekeepers?" scoffed Abel Sanchez. "You don't know what you are dealing with. Your jail cells can't hold me."

"Yer the one ain't got no smarts. Ya git one chance ta git so git," rasped the tracker.

"Do you think you can make me?" laughed Abel Sanchez. "A so-called priest that no longer believes in God and a bunch of dirty low-down scoundrels?" 

"I may be a scoundrel but I, sir, am never dirty," countered an affronted Ezra, picking a piece of imaginary lint from the sleeve of his plum-colored cutaway coat.

"Josiah, do I have to remind you about Hannah's welfare?" persisted Abel Sanchez.

"J'siah ain't needin' ta go on the worry," interrupted Vin. "Iffen the day comes J'siah ain't here no longer lookin' after Hannah then I's ready ta care fer her. She's kinfolk."

"So again, who is going to make me leave?" sneered Abel Sanchez.

"He's on his way," rasped Vin. "Listen up, kin ya hear him?"

The jingle of spurs faint in the distance sounding a death knell steadily coming closer and closer, caused Abel Sanchez to rise from his chair.

"Who. . .?" he asked.

Vin tipped his hat. "Adios," he smirked.

Death entered the saloon. His long black duster fanning out behind him as if it had its own vendetta while the brass and glass oil lamps dimmed. The shadowy darkness that clung to him seemingly had a life all of its own too. A trail of glistening, bloody red bootprints snaked across the wooden planks of the floor behind him. The miasma of stale tobacco and sour whiskey hurriedly shrank back into the dusty corners of the room to be replaced by the smell of the grave. 

His eyes shaded by his wide-brimmed black hat just dark hollows with a burning green coal at the center of each. A hand the ivory white of bleached bone rested on the butt of his high holstered gun.

Abel Sanchez gave a strangled gasp. "Larabee . . .I . . ."

A hunted look in his terrified eyes Abel Sanchez glanced back at the other five men. Each had acquired a glowing golden aura in direct contrast to Larabee's darksome shade. 

When Larabee finally spoke his voice, while only a soft whisper, echoed all through the town ricocheting off the tall buildings like gunfire. "You heard what Josiah said, be gone," he said.

Abel Sanchez looked around once more in dire panic and disappeared in a cloud of sulfur.

"Damn, Larabee," drawled Vin. "More than three words. Yer gettin' mighty talkative, Cowboy."

"Look!" cried JD.

The Seven gazed up at the mirror over saloon bar. Filling with a dense mist words formed on the glass.

 

__ __ "TO BE CONTINUED... NEXT HALLOWEEN..."

 

 

 

__THE END_ _


End file.
